Helen Rieder, 88, Holocaust survivor

Helen Rieder, 88, a Holocaust survivor who later educated young people about the atrocity, died Aug. 8 in Lions Gate retirement community in Voorhees of coronary artery disease.

Mrs. Rieder had a "fierce determination to live" until the very end of her life, her family said. Her unyielding spirit saw her through concentration camps during World War II, after her family's region of Czechoslovakia fell under the rule of an anti-Semitic Hungarian government.

In 1944, when she was 16, she and seven of her eight siblings were taken from a ghetto in what is now Tekova, Ukraine, to Auschwitz. Her parents, Moshe and Regina Zelikovich, owned a bakery. After being separated from most of her family, Mrs. Rieder endured slave labor there and at four additional camps until she was freed in 1945.

Only she and one younger brother, Jacob Zelikovich, survived.

Despite the horrors she had endured, Mrs. Rieder persevered, spurred forward by her father's last words to her: "Someone must survive from this family and tell the world what happened here."

She would go on to do just that.

After she met her husband of 49 years, Abe Rieder, in Israel, the two began a new life in America, moving to Los Angeles in 1958. Mrs. Rieder earned an associate's degree at Glendale Community College. While continuing to take college courses, Mrs. Rieder began a 30-year career as director of Burbank Temple Emanu El Pre-School in California.

By the time she retired in the late 1990s, Mrs. Rieder had shared her story as a Holocaust survivor with countless students and adults. She continued to do so in South Jersey through the Goodwin Holocaust Museum Education Center, in Cherry Hill.

"She's a very devoted person, but the bitterness is not there at all," JoAnn Young, educational chairwoman for Burbank Temple Emanu El told the Los Angeles Times in 1994.

"To be able to show the community at large a little taste of Judaism and what Jewish people are all about, that seems to help her because there was so much hatred when she was growing up," Young said.

In 2014, Southern New Jersey's Jewish Community Voice described Mrs. Rieder as a survivor who "stresses that everyone should be kind to one another, make something of their lives, and take nothing for granted."

After retiring, she and her husband moved to Voorhees in 1999 to be closer to family.

"I'm so proud and honored to be her grandson," Dan Siegel told the Jewish Community Voice at a 2014 Yom HaShoah event.

Mrs. Rieder is survived by her daughter, Renee Siegel; son, Mitchell Rieder; and three grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Platt Memorial Chapels, 2001 Berlin Rd., Cherry Hill. A burial will follow at Crescent Memorial Park at 7349 Westfield Ave., Pennsauken, and shivah will be observed at the home of Renee and Howard Siegel.

Donations can be made to the Goodwin Holocaust Museum and Education Center through the following link: www.jcrcsnj.org/goodwin.

215-854-2715@erinJustineET